@HLWharton

Twitter: "You have activated your account. Thanks!"
After about 3 attempts to sign up but never getting anywhere, I have finally created a Twitter account, this will enable me to follow agencies, creatives and so on and keep up to date with the current affairs within advertising and the design world. The trip to London made me aware just how important this site is within the industry and how it can be used to gain contact/information about agencies and creatives giving me a better insight...

About time! 

Alight Facebook Page

One of our ideas for a small section of our campaign was to use some Social Networking in order to reach a wider, varied audience. An idea we had to for this was to create a Facebook page and on it ask everyone to upload a picture of their hand, decorated, dressed up etc and then we would judge the winner and they would win 5 free tickets to Alight: Twilight, the ticketed event of the day. We thought this would get people involved and make people aware of the event, the incentive to win something would encourage people to participate, but at the same time we could tell everyone about the event.


While considering creating this Facebook group I thought it was important to look and find any existing ones, I came across the only one which was every basic, had no members/friends/followers and simply had some photographs of a few of the performances on it, I don't feel that this is at all good enough to promote the even and think it would be valuable for us to create one with more of a buzz about it. 


Here is the existing sites page:

Can be found at: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003107115444&sk=wall

I also noted that this cannot be searched for through the Facebook search bar and can only be accessed through Google Search Bar which means that the many Facebook users cannot access it via a simple search which would be the most accessible approach.

Supporting Research - Hands in Advertisements

We decided it was important before continuing with our campaign to look at existing hand advertisements, not only for inspiration but also to make sure we weren't using an idea which had already been done. Through this time I found some amazing pieces connected to hands that I was really impressed with and took on board as inspiration. The first one was the Guinness Hand Advert:

It is a similar idea to what we have done for one of our Youtube/Viral video ideas and thought it was interesting and useful to us. It has a similar home made feel to what we wanted to create, using a plain background (although we intend to add a back image) and then the use of hands as the main focus. Just like our idea, we are not advertising hands which we felt was important.. I really like the repetition used and the fact that you don't know what its for until the end, but once you do you wont forget. The insight into this is really significant to the product.

I also found a St Patricks edition of this:

I then came across poster image advertising for company AT&A, the full set for the campaign can be seen here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/shareatt/sets/72157622368636074/

Some of my favourites are below:

I was so impressed when I found these, they are so beautiful and innovative and clever, I love the way they have incorporated the fact that hands are used to make calls send texts etc but then they have made them relevant to the 'truth' or the company which is that the network is the best in many different countries for signal etc. I cant even describe how impressed I am with this campaign, I absolutely love it! It has made me think about other ways of how we can include hands into our campaign rather than using just bare skin, we could think about layering images on top of it or incorporating images onto the hands...?

London Trip Overview

Overall, I really enjoyed my 3 days in London and really felt it was an eye opener into how the industry works. In the 2 agencies I went to I loved the atmosphere and professionalism but also the casual working atmosphere. It gave me a valuable insight into what the agencies are like and the sort of accounts they are involved in. The experience made me realise how much I do want to work in London and how much more cosmopolitan and multicultural it is compared to Sheffield or Lincoln. The visit has made me motivated to work harder and make sure I have a good Book ready to present to agencies, as well as consider what partner I would like to work with long term and who I think I could go into the industry with successfully. 

London Trip - Euro RSCG London

This was the second agency we visited, and although it was still very modern and spacious, I instantly began to prefer Inferno's vibe and atmosphere and the sophistication and quality of the layout which immediately created a certain impression of the company. After looking at their website too (Below) I felt more like Inferno would be a company more for me, with a more quirky, innovative edge, maybe much smaller but with a much more personal feel about it.

At Euro RSCG we were given a short brief of creating an advert/campaign for either Flora Light or PH Hot Sauce, me and Emma (the other half of my team) chose the Flora Light product to begin creating a campaign/initial ideas for. We were given an idea to come up with initial ideas before we were given feedback. I felt that this would have been a more valuable experience if we had been given the brief maybe a couple of weeks in advance and then took our work in to be critiqued, showing George Beattell (the Copywriter who we spoke to) some more finesse work which we had had chance to develop and work on to a higher quality rather than some rubbish initial ideas which were all very simple and similar to the others. This was reflected by the very generic feedback which he gave us all.

I found him a useful character to talk to as he had been to SHU and had came into the industry not in a team but as a single copywriter, it was useful to hear his story and how he had got where he was and what advice he had for us. Overall it was a valued and useful experience and it was interesting to have a nosey around and see what sort of environment people worked in (as we saw when we went to get a cuppa from the cafe!) I feel it could have been useful to speak to someone a bit higher up and to see what they were looking for in new, young designers, but obviously the likelihood of them having time for us is always going to be very slim. George suggested 5 finished campaigns in our Book, and said it should all be very refined and to a high standard. DONT PUT ANYTHING LESS THAN THE BEST IN IT. 

London Trip - Inferno

First impressions: WOW, the agencies interior was gorgeous, professional and had a friendly atmosphere, the TV was nicely framed in a photo frame style and everyone seemed busy working but happy to help. We all went into a conference/meeting room and the talk began..

Our talk was given by a man called Paul Mann, who is originally from Newcastle who now works for the agency. He was really friendly and gave some great advice, showing us different recent campaigns that Inferno had been part of, including a huge Nokia account:

 He then went to tell us about his role in the company which mainly consisted of keeping the website and other frontal pieces up to date, accurate and interesting, here is there website:

The most important thing thats affecting me right now is probably this below. The Young Creative Council, its a great way for me to see whats going on, get new ideas and can aid me in getting contacts in the UK and abroad for placements as well as finding someone to be in a team with if I end up on my own trying to start my career. Below is their website:

Love this.. Nikon - Robbie Williams Advert

This advert always catches my eye when I'm watching television and it comes on, I absolutely love it and it really inspires me, the particular section is the Robbie Williams concert piee which is from about 15 seconds onwards on the video below: